Friday Fun: Let’s Daydream About the GOP Convention

If John McCain does not emerge as the Republican nominee, there's a good likelihood that the GOP is going to be in for a long, strange ride. Let's walk though this.

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[If there is] a Huckabee win in Iowa, then Romney will likely prevail in the Granite State. We could easily see McCain, Thompson, and Duncan Hunter drop out after New Hampshire or South Carolina. We could see Giuliani drop out after Florida. And we'll be left with Huckabee, Romney, and Ron Paul. And Ron Paul will have enough money to compete everywhere on Super Duper Tuesday, while Huckabee will not, and Romney will have to spend his own fortune.

Even in this scenario, I do not expect Ron Paul to win the nomination, or even any states (although he could win a couple). But he could easily rack up a fifth of the available delegates in a three-way race. Imagine the Republican convention if Ron Paul has the third biggest block of delegates.

Let's go even further here. Assuming that Romney's delegates are more Mormon than his overall universe of support and that Huckabee's delegates are more Southern Baptist than his overall universe of support, and that Ron Paul's delegates are…well…the most enthusiastic and dedicated of Ron Paul's supporters…the Minneapolis conventions is going to be a assembly of the cultural fringe.

2 Responses to Friday Fun: Let’s Daydream About the GOP Convention

I don’t think McCain drops out, in fact I think he is probably the only candidate with a shot of winning the nomination outright.

The reason McCain is currently surging is that the voters realize that neither the fake, nor the flake is going to win the Whitehouse for them. Romney is all things to all men. Giuliani is a one trick pony whose signature issues of fighting terror and the mob are compromised by his support for terrorist leader Gerry Adams and mobbed up homeland security candidate Kerick. Both have serious ‘moral values issues’, Romney is a member of the wrong religion and Giuliani is a philanderer. Moral values being code for ‘people like us’, Catholics and Momons need not apply.

Huckabee was surging until people started to realize that since the 19th ammendment it has become electoral suicide for any party to nominate a man who tells women that they should graciously submit to the servant leadership of their husbands.

Unless Bloomberg is an idiot the only explanations for his billion dollar third party run would be either that having seen what Rudy did to NYC he is going to make sure that he does not get the chance to do the same to the USA or that he is gambling that there will be a brokered convention and that the GOP might well throw the nomination to Bloomberg as the only way they can avoid a rout.